Red mist

For the past few weeks I've been getting very annoyed about something. It's palm oil. I'm still as mad as I was when I first read this article and this one in the Independent. What has got me so cross is that I have been buying many of these items for years without realising that my money was contributing towards the demand for palm oil. Well, no more, I'm determined to try to live without the stuff as far as I can. I have read in many places that it's more or less impossible as this stuff is insidious throughout our consumer products. Nevertheless, I feel I have to act.

I don't want to clutter up my lampwork blog as this issue is a bit disparate but what I'd like to do is invite my readers to look at my other blog, Free me of palm oil, which is dedicated to my attempts to boycott products using palm oil.

I'll be prettying up the new blog with some photographs of rainforest creatures when I get chance to look out some royalty-free not for profit photographs.

This bead was made today whilst I was thinking about the issues thrown up by palm oil and the destruction of orangutan habitat in particular. I'm calling it Red Mist as it represents how angry - really angry - I am with the manufacturers who have been using it and disguising the fact on their ingredients' lists.

I'll be making more of these beads and a percentage of the proceeds of the jewellery sold will be donated towards the Orangutan Foundation, a UK based charity.